Operation Ajax
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Operation Ajax (1953) (officially TP-AJAX) was a covert operation by the United Kingdom and the United States to remove the nationalist[1] cabinet of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh from power, to support the Pahlavi dynasty and consolidate the power of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. The idea of overthrowing Mossadegh was conceived by the British. They originally asked President Truman for assistance, but he refused. When Eisenhower became president in 1953, the British proposed the idea once again, and this time, the Americans agreed to help.
Rationale for the intervention included Mossadegh’s socialist political views and his nationalization, without compensation, of the oil industry which was previously operated by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (which later changed its name to The British Petroleum Company) under contracts disputed by the nationalists as unfair. A particular point of contention was the refusal of the Anglo-Iranian Oil company to allow an audit of the accounts to determine whether the Iranian government received the royalties it was due. Intransigence on the part of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company led the nationalist government to escalate its demands, requiring an equal share in the oil revenues. The final crisis was precipitated when the oil company ceased operations in Iran rather than accepting the Iranian government's demands.
The newly state-owned oil companies saw a dramatic drop in productivity and, consequently, exports; this resulted in the Abadan Crisis, a situation that was further aggravated by its export markets being closed. Even so royalties to the Iranian government were significantly higher than before nationalization. Without its own distribution network it was denied access to markets by an international blockade intended to coerce Mossadegh into reprivatization. In addition, the appropriation of the companies resulted in Western allegations that Mossadegh was a Communist and suspicions that Iran was in danger of falling under the influences of the neighboring Soviet Union. But Mossadegh refused to back down under international pressure.
For the U.S., an important factor to consider was Iran’s border with the Soviet Union. A pro-American Iran under the Shah would give the U.S. a double strategic advantage in the ensuing Cold War, as a NATO alliance was already in effect with the government of Turkey, also bordering the USSR.
In planning the operation, the CIA organized a guerrilla force in case the communist Tudeh Party seized power as a result of the chaos created by Operation Ajax. According to formerly “Top Secret” documents released by the National Security Archive, Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith reported that the CIA had reached an agreement with Qashqai tribal leaders in southern Iran to establish a clandestine safe haven from which U.S.-funded guerrillas and intelligence agents could operate.
Operation Ajax was the first time the Central Intelligence Agency was involved in a plot to overthrow a democratically-elected government. The success of this operation, and its relatively low cost, encouraged the CIA to successfully carry out a similar operation in Guatemala a year later.
Widespread dissatisfaction with the regime of the reinstalled Shah led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the occupation of the U.S. embassy. The role that the U.S. embassy had played in the 1953 coup led the revolutionary guards to suspect that it might be used to play a similar role in suppressing the revolution.
The leader of Operation Ajax was Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., a senior CIA agent, and grandson of the former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. While formal leadership was vested in Kermit Roosevelt, the project was designed and executed by Donald Wilber, a career contract CIA agent and acclaimed author of books on Iran, Afghanistan and Ceylon.
As a condition of restoring the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the U.S. was able to dictate that the AIOC’s oil monopoly should lapse. Five major U.S. oil companies, plus Royal Dutch Shell and French Compagnie Française des Pétroles were given licences to operate in the country alongside AIOC.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ A Very British Coup (English) (radio show). Document. British Broadcasting Corporation (2005). Retrieved on 2006-06-14.
[edit] References
- Kinzer, Stephen (2003). All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-26517-9.
[edit] External links
- The CIA and Iran: What Really Happened?—alternate view by Ardeshir Zahedi
- 50 Years Later—a look back at the 1953 U.S.-backed coup in Iran
- The C.I.A. in Iran—New York Times report based on uncovered CIA documents
- The Secret CIA History of the Iran Coup, 1953—Provided by the National Security Archive
- Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran—new book from the National Security Archive reexamines the coup
- How to Overthrow a Government—interview with Steven Kinzer, author of All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
- All The Shah’s Men—interview with Steven Kinzer
- Review of All the Shah's Men by David S. Robarge
- A Very Elegant Coup—critique of All the Shah’s Men
